ONE Campaign Pairs Beer with Advocacy

Two things I really appreciate are 1) fine craft beers and 2) people who endure discomfort for the sake of a good cause. Drinking a good IPA (like DC Brau’s new On the Wings of Armageddon!) is an easy pleasure, but it takes heart and dedication to stand outside on a 110-degree heat index afternoon and talk to strangers about global poverty. Which is exactly what the ONE Campaign did this past Saturday, August 13, when it set up a “White House” bounce house outside of the aforementioned brewery.

“The idea is that in order to enter the ‘White House,'” Maggie from the ONE Campaign told me, motioning to the bounce house, “you should make your voice heard in the real White House.” She was referring to ballots pre-addressed to either President Clinton or President Trump that included a checklist of the major poverty-related issues for the next president to address. A ONE Campaign staffer with ballots in hand stood outside the bounce house, talking more to parents of young children than to other adults, who understandably were probably too hot/dehydrated to bounce around outside. Did I mention the heat index?

Once I finished a pint of that delicious new OTWOA IPA, I walked over to the ONE Campaign’s info tent, where I met Maggie and got set up at a virtual reality (VR) viewing station. With the VR goggles and headphones on, I watched a first video of a Ghanaian woman who prevented her HIV status from passing to her children thanks to medications funded and distributed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and a second video showing the plight of a young Kenyan girl in a small village where there is no running water or electricity. At first I was a little dubious of the whole VR thing, but when I was watching those videos, I felt like I was actually there with these people. Pretty cool stuff, even if those VR goggles always make me a little dizzy.

You can find out more about the ONE Campaign’s Vote ’16 Caravan here and about DC Brau’s effing delicious imperial IPA here.